Salt and/or sand spreading is a common practice to maintain roads during the winter months. Over the years, private businesses have become involved in road, driveway and parking lot maintenance in the form of removing snow from such areas and spreading of salt and/or sand on such areas. Private businesses typically use pickup trucks to perform this type of service. In the past, numerous types of salt spreaders have been developed to be attached to conventional vehicles. Typically, the spreader is mounted on the rear of the vehicle to spread particulate material, such as salt, sand, cinders, etc. onto the surface being traveled by the vehicle. One of the more common spreaders employs a hopper having a lower discharge opening through which the particulate material falls onto a rotating spreader element. Such a spreader is known as a broadcast spreader. By rotating the spreader element as material is being discharged onto the spreader element, the particulate material is centrifugally propelled by the spreader element in a wide pattern onto the ground surface. Typically, a motor is mounted on the spreader to cause the spreader element to rotate. In some instances, the spreader element is supported on a motor-driven shaft which protrudes upwardly into the hopper to break up conglomerations of material and to agitate the material in the hopper for better feeding through the discharge opening.
Typical spreader mount assemblies used in conjunction with pick-up trucks have fastened the spreader to the truck's rear bumper or tailgate. The usual procedure is that the spreader is secured to the truck in a fixed position by the use of bolts and brackets. Due to the relative difficulty in installing the assembly, such assemblies are left on during the spreading season and are not removed until the season ends. One such mount configuration is disclosed in Assignee's U.S. Pat. No. 4,166,581, which is incorporated herein by reference. Another available configuration includes the use of brackets which slide over the tailgate, and incorporates a frame which rests on the vehicle's bumper. A spreader mounting assembly disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,375,773, which is incorporated herein by reference, includes a frame which attaches to the vehicle and includes pivoting connections between the frame of the vehicle so that the frame can be swung horizontally, thereby permitting access to the tailgate of vehicle. Although these spreader mounting assemblies can successfully mount a spreader to a vehicle and were an improvement over many of the prior spreader mounting assemblies, there remained several disadvantages associated with such mounting assemblies. Once such disadvantage is that the frame which supports the hopper and spreader must be made of heavy-gauge steel to support a hopper filled with particulate material as it is being swung from the tailgate of the vehicle. The heavier materials which must be used for the construction of the frame result in additional costs and difficulty in moving the frame by an operator. Another disadvantage is that the mounting bracket for the mounting assembly must be bolted to the top of the side wall of the vehicle. As a result, bolt holes must be drilled into the top of each of the side walls to secure the bracket to the top of the side walls. The resulting holes permanently disfigure the vehicle and can result in rusting of the vehicle around the drilled bolt holes. A further disadvantage of the spreader mounting assembly is that the outer surface of the tailgate can be damaged if the tailgate is not properly closed prior to the frame being secured to the rear of the vehicle. Another disadvantage is that the spreader assembly is not easily adaptable to a variety of differing width cargo beds, thereby limiting the utility of such mounting assembly to specific size trucks.
Many of the deficiencies of past mounting assemblies were overcome by Assignee's U.S. Pat. No. 5,988,534, which is incorporated herein by reference. The '534 patent disclosed a spreader gate attached to the rear of a vehicle and designed to substantially close an opening between the two side walls of a cargo bay. A gate connector was provided to pivotally move the spreader gate about a substantially vertical axis, thereby enabling the spreader gate to be swung away from the cargo bed. A spreader mount was also provided which was connected to the spreader gate and extended rearwardly therefrom. The hopper mount was designed to support a hopper. The spreader gate was designed to be substituted for the original tailgate of the vehicle. As a result, the original vehicle tailgate was removed prior to installing the spreader gate. The spreader gate was then installed and was designed to close the opening between the two side walls of the cargo bay without the need of the original tailgate. The elimination of the original vehicle tailgate allowed an operator to easily gain access into the cargo bay by merely swinging open the spreader gate. Since the spreader gate did not need to be swung completely open for an operator to access the cargo bed of the vehicle, only a minimum amount of movement of the spreader gate was required to allow an operator to gain easy access to the cargo bay area of the vehicle. The spreader gate also did not require a significant amount of space for opening to allow an operator to gain access to the cargo bay area. The use of the spreader gate allowed an operator to conveniently transfer particulate material from the cargo bed into a hopper mounted on the spreader gate. The '534 patent also disclosed a spreader gate that included a plurality of sections to enable the length of the spreader gate to be adjusted for use in a variety of tailgate configurations. The spreader gate accommodated the wide variety of widths of tailgates on various types of vehicles. The '534 patent further disclosed a gate connector that was positioned rearwardly of the cargo bed to allow the spreader gate to be easily swung away from the cargo bed. A portion of the gate connector was mounted onto the rear bumper of the vehicle such as by brackets and/or by inserting bolt holes into the rear bumper. The gate connector also included a connector flange which was secured to the inner surface of the side wall of the cargo bay such as by clamps and/or bolts.
Although the spreader gate overcame many of the deficiencies of prior spreader gates, the spreader gate still required some modest modifications and alterations to the rear of the vehicle. In addition, the tailgate of the vehicle had to be stored until the spreader gate was removed. Some operators of vehicles that only periodically used the spreader remained dissatisfied that their vehicle had to be disfigured due to one or more components of the spreader gate having to be mounted to vehicle bumper and cargo bay by use of bolts or other types of connectors. In addition, some operators were dissatisfied that the tailgate had to be removed before the spreader gate could be installed. The removal of the tailgate and/or mounting of one or more components of the spreader gate to the vehicle required some vehicle owners to seek professional installation. Furthermore, vehicle owners that use SUVs and/or jeeps typically could not use spreader mounts, since such mounts were designed primarily for pickup trucks.
In view of the deficiencies of the present spreader mounting assemblies, there remains a need for a spreader mounting assembly that is easy to install, which minimizes the amount of disfigurement to a vehicle, and which can be used in a wide variety of vehicles.